A Lexington cop shot a man 4 months ago. Body camera video still hasn’t been released
It’s been four months since Lexington police officer Miller Owens shot Darion Worfolk.
On the same day that Worfolk was shot, Lexington police issued a statement supporting the release of the officer’s body cam video. Kentucky State Police told the Herald-Leader it would be made available in a timely manner. A Lexington councilman called for the video to be released “as soon as possible.”
Despite that, the public hasn’t been allowed to see footage from the July 31 incident. Agencies and offices have passed the responsibility off to one another for weeks and now contend that the video can’t be released publicly because it’s part of a criminal investigation. After the shooting, Worfolk was charged with trafficking cocaine, evading police, menacing and being a convicted felon in possession of a handgun.
Other agencies have released videos of police shootings in the interest of transparency amid heightened concerns about officer use of excessive force.
On the day of the shooting, police spokeswoman Brenna Angel said the police department “supports the release of body-worn camera video from this incident.”
Angel said this week that Lexington police are still prepared to release the video once it’s considered appropriate to do so. She said it’s “important to remember” that the video footage is evidence in an open court case.
“Any release of information has the potential of affecting the investigative and judicial processes,” she said.
Angel also said that the internal investigation being conducted by Lexington’s Public Integrity Unit was still ongoing. The unit was awaiting a final report from state police from its investigation of the incident, Angel said. The investigation was launched after the shooting, and Owens was placed on administrative reassignment until the investigation concluded.
In the months between those statements, the Lexington Police Department told the Herald-Leader it would be up to Kentucky State Police to release the video. Lexington police denied a Herald-Leader open-records request for a copy of the video on July 31.
“Prematurely releasing documentation prior to the closure of these matters may lead to sensitive and/or intimate details becoming public,” Shannon Penegor, an assistant records custodian, wrote in a response to the request.
State Trooper Stuart Jackson said Tuesday there were no updates to share in the state investigation, and state police were waiting for the “green light” from prosecutors to release the video.
That differed from Jackson’s statements immediately after the shooting when he told the Herald-Leader he didn’t “anticipate it being too long” before the video would be released.
Lou Anna Red Corn, the commonwealth’s attorney for Fayette County, told the Herald-Leader she wouldn’t release the video. Her office is prosecuting Worfolk in Fayette Circuit Court.
“My office and I are prevented from releasing the body camera of the officer because of ethical prohibitions found in Kentucky’s Rules of Professional Conduct and rules pertaining to open records,” Red Corn said.
Red Corn referenced state Supreme Court rule 3.130(3.6), which states that a lawyer participating in a court case shouldn’t make public statements that would be shared and cause prejudice in legal proceedings. The rule states that information in a public record can be released, but Red Corn argued that the video could prejudice potential jurors.
First Amendment attorney Jon Fleischaker disputed arguments from both police agencies and Red Corn’s office. He said the state supreme court rule, which Red Corn cited, “doesn’t overrule the open records law.” He also said that if Lexington police had a copy of the video, they should still be obligated to release it despite the state police investigation.
“What they’ve done so far, it’s almost like a shell game,” Fleischaker said.
If the video identifies a previously unknown source or harms the investigation, it can be exempted from open records law, Fleischaker said. But police have to prove that the video could harm the investigation and state how it does so, Fleischaker said. If they don’t, the argument of an ongoing investigation is not a valid defense against releasing the video.
“Law enforcement throughout the commonwealth has a history, for the most part, of behaving as if the open records law doesn’t apply to them,” Fleischaker said.
Police accounts of what happened during the confrontation between the officer and Worfolk have been fairly consistent. Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers initially said that officers were called to East Fifth Street and Chestnut Street for a report of a man with a gun. They located Worfolk when they arrived at the scene, Weathers said.
Worfolk didn’t comply with the initial responding officer’s commands and ran away, Weathers said. Worfolk was shot in the hip on the front side of his body. Weathers didn’t explicitly say at the time that Worfolk was seen holding a gun. But Worfolk’s gun was recovered at the scene, the chief said.
A police report filled out by a Lexington officer explicitly stated that Worfolk “was in possession of a handgun” while fleeing police, which “placed the officer in reasonable apprehension of immediate physical injury.”
A news release from Kentucky State Police following the shooting said that Worfolk failed to comply with “several verbal commands” to drop the gun before he ran from Owens.
Worfolk also had suspected crack-cocaine and $123 in cash when he was detained, according to an arrest citation.
Worfolk was in the Lexington-Fayette County Detention Center as of Tuesday.
A status hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 18 with Fayette Circuit Judge Lucy VanMeter, according to court records. Worfolk’s attorney, Daniel Whitley, didn’t immediately respond to questions about the video’s release.
This story was originally published November 25, 2020 at 11:23 AM.